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Customizing SAFe for YOU

In scaling agile, context matters. Being able to customize an agile framework to suit your unique conditions and context is very important.

Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe®) is often harshly and incorrectly criticized as too prescriptive or too rigid, and by implications, not easy to customize.

Inspired by Dr. Jeff Sutherland’s Scrum at Scale meta-framework which provides a general language for talking about how to scale Scrum, I will present how SAFe can be implemented in a highly customizable way tailored to your unique situation.

In this Pecha-Kucha lightening talk, I will present eight modules (inspired by the Scrum at Scale meta-framework) to allow you to implement SAFe in a highly customized way tailored to your situation.

1. Vision and Strategy Planning: at the enterprise level

2. Lean value flow: at team, program and portfolio levels

3. Backlog Prioritization: at team, program and portfolio levels

4. Release Planning and Release Train Management: at program level

5. Team-Level Scrum Process: at team level

6. Feedback and Continuous Improvement: at individual, team, program and portfolio levels

7. Coordination and Collaboration: at individual, team, program and portfolio levels

8. Metrics and Transparency: at individual, team, program and portfolio levels

Each of these eight modules has a set of well-defined goals, inputs and outputs. It is up to each SAFe entity (team or program or portfolio) to implement these modules in a way that best suits its own needs and constraints, so long as it produces the desired goals and outputs from a given set of inputs, coordinates well with other related teams or programs or portfolios, and honors the lean-agile values of SAFe. The details of implementing these eight modules should be left to each entity, creating tremendous scope for customization at SAFe team, program and portfolio levels.

My lightening talk will be based on my popular blog “Scaling Agile Your Way: How to Develop and Implement Your Custom Approach (Part 4 of 4)” at VersionOne blog site: http://bit.ly/1EXTf6o.